Operational Research Applied to Sports

Mike Wright is Professor of Operational Research at Lancaster University and has researched extensively in the area of OR in Sports since 1989. His main interests are: the practical implementations of sports timetabling and scheduling using complex metaheuristic methods; the analysis of tactics and strategy in sport; and the analysis of the potential and actual effects of changes in sporting rules and laws. He has published numerous papers in the area in a variety of top international academic journals, and presented papers at many international conferences. Mike has worked with the England and Wales Cricket Board since 1990, timetabling cricket fixtures and allocating umpires, and has done similar work for New Zealand Cricket, Basketball New Zealand, New Zealand Rugby Union, the Minor Counties Cricket Association, the Devon Cricket League, the Home Counties Cricket League and the ICC Cricket World Cups in 1999 and 2007.

"Operational Research Applied to Sports is one of a series of books published by Palgrave which introduces OR as it is applied to a variety of fields. ... the book contains thirteen papers that had been carefully selected to cover a range of different sports. ... This book focussing entirely on OR applied to sports is a welcome addition to literature." (Hans W. Ittmann, IFORS News, Vol. 10 (3), September, 2016)

• 1. Introduction2. The Optimal Aiming Line3. Planning Urban Recreational Facilities With Integer Goal Programming4. Using Hypergames To Model Difficult Social Issues: An Approach To The Case Of Soccer Hooliganism.5. Optimal Strategies For The Game Of Darts6. Dynamic Programming In One-Day Cricket – Optimal Scoring Rates7. Scheduling English Cricket Umpires8. Computer Forecasting Of Australian Rules Football For A Daily Newspaper9. Timetabling County Cricket Fixtures Using A Form Of Tabu Search10. A Fair Method For Resetting The Target In Interrupted One-Day Cricket Matches11. Measuring The Performance Of Nations At The Summer Olympics Using Data Envelopment Analysis12. The Professional Foul In Football – Tactics And Deterrents13. A Mathematical Analysis Of Badminton Scoring Systems14. A Branch-And-Price Algorithm For Scheduling Sport Leagues15. Optimal Challenges In Tennis